


A Halloween Tale

by Sinanju



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Highlander - All Media Types, Highlander: The Series
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-28
Updated: 2012-05-28
Packaged: 2017-11-06 03:57:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/414440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sinanju/pseuds/Sinanju
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Following a one-night stand, Richie Ryan travels to the UC Sunnydale campus in hopes of renewing his relationship with the young woman in question. Alas, being unceremoniously dumped is the least of his problems. Richie discovers the existence of vampires--and Slayers--the hard way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Halloween Tale

"I'm really, really sorry," Mary Sue said. Her expression begged forgiveness even as she did her best to block the doorway with her body. Music, laughter and a babble of voices rolled out of her dormitory room, nearly drowning out her voice.

Rich Ryan stared at her, stunned by her indifference. "But—"

"Really," she repeated. She paused for a moment, her apologetic expression marred by a frown that seemed to say, _why won't you go away?_ She added, "Well—goodbye."

The door closed, muting the sounds of partying.

Rich stared at the door feeling hurt, angry, speechless. He'd spent two days on the road for _this?_ He wanted to hammer on her door, get her attention, demand an explanation. Except that he knew better. One night in Seacouver did not a relationship build, even if she had invited him to visit her at U.C. Sunnydale for Halloween. He'd been foolish to come all this way hoping for a repeat performance.

Well, it wasn't the first time he'd played the fool over a woman. Mac had certainly warned him about it often enough. The thought of what Mac—or worse, Adam, with his razor tongue—would have to say about this latest escapade warmed Rich's cheeks. Best if they simply never heard about it.

"Another jilted suitor?" Hearing the voice, Rich turned.

An attractive brunette in white makeup wearing black jeans, a white blouse and black nylon cape lined in red took in Rich and the door to Mary Sue's room with a knowing glance. "I hate to break it to you, but you're hardly the first." Her smile took any sting out of the words. Two thin lines of painted blood ran down her chin from the corners of her mouth.

Rich grinned back at her. "So you're saying mine isn't the only name in her little black book?"

"Her little black book looks like the phone book."

"Well don't I feel special." Rich held out his hand. "Rich Ryan, jilted suitor."

She shook his hand. "Cindy Jackson, creature of the night. Don't feel too bad—you're certainly cuter than most of Mary Sue's suitors."

"Thanks," Rich said. He raised one hand to indicate the mask he wore as part of his Zorro costume. "But how can you tell?"

Cindy let a little heat fill her eyes. "Centuries of practice—I'm older than I look."

"Aren't we all," Rich said. "Look, I appreciate the information. Stalking the night must be thirsty work. Can I buy you a drink for your trouble?"

Cindy grinned at him. "My goodness, you certainly recover from rejection quickly! Yes, I'd love a drink—but I never drink…wine."

"Oh. Well, I'm sure we can find something palatable, don't you think?"

Cindy took Rich's hand with a predatory smile. "I'm sure we can. Follow me."

* * *

Rich allowed Cindy to lead him out of the dorm and across the quad. Nearly all of the students in sight were in costume. Halloween was apparently a favorite holiday in Sunnydale. It felt strange to wear his rapier openly on his hip, but Rich thought he could get used to it. Too bad Halloween only happened one night a year.

Cindy took Rich's hand with a shy smile and led into a more heavily wooded area. They walked a narrow path beneath the smoking sky. The rainclouds which had pressed down on the area all day were thinning and blowing away. A full moon laid silvery light across the land. When there was no else in sight, Cindy stopped and turned to face Rich.

"Here we are," she purred, stepping very close to Rich.

"Alone at last," Rich replied, sliding an arm around her waist and pulling her closer still.

Cindy's gaze shifted from Rich's face to a point behind him. "Not exactly."

Rich glanced over his shoulder and felt his smile drain away. Two young men had stepped into sight, spreading out to bracket Rich and Cindy as they moved forward. Everything about them screamed _predator_. For just an instant Rich felt an urge to protect Cindy—then a terrible suspicion flowered in his mind. Once it occurred to him, Rich could not ignore it.

He took a large step back and to his left, so he could face the approaching thugs without turning his back on Cindy, dropping his hand to the hilt of his rapier. He risked a quick glance at Cindy—who was glaring at the two thugs. "Not yet, damn it!" she snarled.

Suspicions confirmed. Rich drew his rapier.

The two thugs slowed but didn't halt their slow envelopment. "You didn't share the last one," the largest one snapped.

"Yeah," added the other. "We're thirsty too!"

Rich glanced from one thug to another and then to Cindy. Even knowing that Cindy had lured him here, their conversation made no sense. Thirsty? Didn't share? Cindy met Rich's puzzled gaze and smiled sweetly.

"You promised me a drink—remember?" Cindy asked. And then she _changed_ , her face flowing like liquid, settling into a horrific mask. A hellish light filled her eyes and fangs gleamed when she laughed at his surprise and terror.

Cindy lunged at Rich, too fast for him to react. She wrapped her arms around his torso, clinging with inhuman strength, and sank her teeth in Rich's neck. Rich screamed. 

It was no delicate piercing of the skin—it was an animalistic tearing at the throat. Blood flowed hotly across Rich's flesh, sucked noisily by the _thing_ that now held him motionless despite his best efforts to escape. The pain was the least of it. The sheer horror of having this monstrous thing gnawing at him, sucking at his blood left Rich feeling faint.

Desperate to escape, more frightened than he had ever been, Rich frantically maneuvered his rapier to bring the point into play and _pushed_ it slowly, awkwardly up through Cindy's side, aiming for her heart. Cindy's head snapped up and she screamed in his ear.

Rich pushed harder. Cindy shrieked again. Her bear hug tightened convulsively; Rich gasped in pain, feeling several ribs splinter. Then she was gone, drawing back with a snarl, clutching her side and glaring at him with blood—his blood—splashed across her chin.

Cindy was a vampire.

There were _vampires_ in the world. Red-eyed, demon-faced, fanged, blood drinking _vampires_. 

Terror clawed at his belly with icy fingers and drained the strength from his legs until he could barely stand. Nothing in his life had prepared him for _this_ , not even seven years in the Game fighting for his life against other immortals.

Rich backed slowly away, hardly able to stand, knowing that to try to run was futile. Shattered ribs made simply standing or breathing an agony. Injured as he was, he would never get more than a step or two. Running would probably only excite them anyhow, igniting a feeding frenzy.

The other vampires were closing in on him slowly, content to draw out his terror for a moment longer. They too had dropped their masquerade, revealing their monstrous faces. They hadn't rushed him yet. Rich kept his rapier on point. He hadn't killed Cindy, but he had hurt her. Maybe he could keep them at bay until he healed. Maybe—

One of the vampires lunged forward with preternatural speed, slapping the blade from Rich's hand. It rang against the ground at his feet and bounced away. Rich jabbed at an eye with his thumb, feeling it sink into the flesh. The vampire bellowed in pain. In the same instant, the vampire backhanded Rich across the face. Rich felt his jawbone shatter. His mouth filled with blood and the agony of outraged nerve roots in splintered teeth.

When the first instant of blinding pain in his mouth passed, Rich felt himself pulled to his feet by one of the vampires. He hadn't even realized he'd fallen.

Cindy stood before Rich holding his rapier.

Before he could speak or act, she plunged it into Rich's belly. No matter how many times it happened, Rich never got used to the pain. The blade felt cold as ice and wide as a shovel. Cindy yanked the sword free and tossed it aside.

Rich's knees folded without warning as his strength drained away, then he fell to his side. The pain abruptly receded to a distant corner of his awareness. Rich recognized the symptoms. He was dying. He wondered if these…creatures would take his head. They couldn't know he was immortal, but they were so vicious they might mutilate his body just for the hell of it.

A small blonde figure flashed over Rich's head, leaping to his defense. Rich was shocked to see that it was slip of a girl younger and far smaller than himself. And a mortal.

Rich struggled to rise, to cry out a warning to her—but his body failed him. He could only watch in horror as she threw her life away trying to save him.

Then he saw her move.

What followed would have been merely a blur of indistinct motion to anyone who hadn't spent the last few years training to fight centuries-old immortals. His would-be rescuer had none of the fluid grace of an ancient immortal, nor even the smoothness of a mortal martial artist, though to Rich’s trained eye it was clear that she had had _some_ instruction. None of that mattered. She had a speed and strength that more than equaled his attackers.

A clawed hand flashed toward the girl's throat. It stopped, jarred to a halt by the impact against her upraised forearm. Delicate fingers gripped Cindy's wrist and yanked as a jeans-clad leg flashed up to drive into the vampire's chest with an audible _crunch_ of bone. She released the vampire's wrist to turn and face a second opponent as the stunned creature drifted toward the ground in seeming slow motion.

The blonde heroine and her new foe flailed at one another. She stood her ground despite receiving blows to the body and face that would have—that had—broken Rich's jaw and several of his ribs. For a moment the blonde reeled, apparently dazed. The vampire lunged; she slipped aside, revealing her ruse, and threw it to the ground.

And then, as the vampire lay stunned for an instant, she produced a knife—no, a wooden stake with a very sharp point—from inside her jacket and drove it into the vampire's breast in a single graceful, sweeping move. Even through his pain and the growing numbness that signals imminent death, Rich recognized the attitude and purpose.

A coup de grace. The killing-stroke, administered to slay the foe who cannot otherwise be slain. Rich has done it himself, the single well-practiced stroke that beheads cleanly. It is the ultimate necessity and purpose of immortal combat. Rich couldn't help expecting to see a Quickening.

There was no Quickening.

The monster exploded into a cloud of dust, leaving…nothing.

A powerful sense of déjà vu swept over Rich. He watched the blonde woman spin, driving her heel into Cindy's throat with a spinning back kick, knocking her down again—but he saw Connor MacLeod catapulted over the railing of a bridge by a rocket.

The third vampire lunged desperately, fighting with a fury borne of fear, all raw speed and power and hatred but no control. The blonde stood fast, trading blows with the monster—the same ferocious assault that had left Rich lying here shattered and helpless, dying. She endured the assault, gave as good as she got, and finally drove a stake into her opponent—and Rich saw Duncan MacLeod behead Slan Quince, the first of many such deaths he would witness.

As another monster turned to dust, Rich remembered witnessing that first Quickening years ago. He remembered the feeling of having stumbled into the middle of an impossible, surreal battle. The world had turned out to be stranger than he imagined, with beings in it unlike any he had ever dreamed of. And he had become one of the relatively few who knew the truth.

Déjà vu indeed. For it had just happened again. There were vampires in the world.

The blonde stood motionless for a few moments, stake extended and panting, only her eyes moving as she scanned for more opponents. Cindy had disappeared. Rich lay still, paralyzed and freezing, feeling death overtaking him. He watched her, waiting for the Quickening.

Then he remembered—she was mortal. There would be no quickening, but the expectation was hard to shake. Rich couldn’t remember the last time he’d witnessed such a grimly lethal confrontation that _hadn’t_ ended in a Quickening.

With her last foe fled, the blonde turned her attention to Rich.

She knelt by Rich's side, asking a question. Rich couldn't hear the question—she was too far away, at the end of a long dark tunnel. She reached for him, perhaps even touched him. Rich couldn't tell—he was numb. Then he was dead.

* * *

Rich woke with a convulsive start. The first gasping breath seemed to go on forever. When he could think about something other than gulping down air, Rich glanced around. He lay face up on the ground. Someone gave a startled cry.

"He's alive!" another voice reported.

Rich turned his head to see the tiny blonde turn away from a black haired young man and a redhead to look at him, eyes wide with surprise. Then she was kneeling at his side, her trusty wooden stake appearing in her hand as if by magic. _That must be what it looks like to bystanders when immortals draw their blades_ , Richie thought.

"You're alive," the blonde said. "How?"

"Just lucky, I guess," Richie said. He knew he was in trouble, but he was still too weak to get up, much less fight. As if he could hope to fight this tiny blonde whirlwind of destruction anyhow. He'd have to talk his way out of this. Convince them they'd been mistaken—

"You were dead," the blonde announced flatly, interrupting his thought. "Now you're not."

"That's—-" Rich coughed. "That's ridiculous. You're mistaken."

The blonde frowned. "Giles?" she asked.

"Wha—no, Rich," Rich said, confused. Who was Giles?

"Yeah, we should probably check with Giles before we—before you—you know..." the redhead agreed.

"Right," the blonde said. "Nighty-night," the blonde said, reversing the stake. She struck Rich between the eyes with the blunt end of the stake before he could react and everything went dark once more.

* * *

"He's awake again," someone said as Rich woke to a terrible headache.

Rich turned his head to see the blonde watching him from a chair about four feet from the sofa on which he lay. She sat with Rich's rapier carefully laid across her thighs, one hand wrapped around the hilt. Behind her stood a small dining room table with three people seated around it. Two of them were now watching Rich; the third, an older man in glasses, continued leafing through a large book.

"Not just awake," the black-haired young man said. "Alive." He left his chair to take a step toward Rich, thrusting out an accusatory finger. "You were dead, pal!" His tone was indignant, not frightened, angry or disbelieving.

Rich tried to push himself upright and learned why he lay so awkwardly on the sofa. His wrists were tied behind his back, and his ankles were bound as well. "That's—that's absurd," Rich replied. He had little hope of talking his way out of this, but there was nothing else to do for the moment. "You're mistaken."

"Oh no—we've all seen enough dead bodies to know one when Buffy drops it on Giles' couch, and you were definitely dead, Sparky!" The black-haired man seemed prepared to continue but the blonde held up a hand and he fell silent. Sparky? She leaned forward, catching Rich's attention and meeting his gaze.

"I'm Buffy Summers," she announced. "And you are?" She smiled as she spoke, but Rich could see the steel behind her eyes. He'd seen that look before, all too often. Even if he hadn't seen her kill three vampires, he'd have known she was a killer.

Rich gave her his best innocently blank face, perfected over the years in police precincts all over Seacouver. "Richard Redstone."

"The _late_ Richard Redstone?" she asked brightly.

"Obviously not," Rich replied just as cheerfully.

"But you were dead," Buffy prompted him. "I saw it. Weren't you?"

Rich briefly contemplated lying, but given what they had witnessed, there seemed to be little point. He sighed. "Yes, I was. But I'm better now."

"How?"

"I'm a fast healer, alright?"

"Not alright," she insisted. "What are you?"

"I could ask you the same question, you know—" Rich broke off when Buffy raised his sword and placed the tip of the blade over his heart.

"I'm the Vampire Slayer," she told him. Her voice was flat, implacable. "And a demon slayer, when necessary. Zombie slayer. Et cetera."

She continued speaking, but Rich had stopped listening. His mind reeled from her casual announcement that vampires, demons, zombies and God knew what other things really existed. Since his death and resurrection into the Game, Rich had felt like a small fish in a big pond. His pond had just become an ocean, vastly larger and deeper than he had ever imagined.

"So," Buffy continued, breaking into Rich's thoughts. "I need to know whether or not to kill you."

Rich did his best to look harmless and give her his most charming smile. "I'd rather you didn't. I'm not a monster, just a guy."

"'Just guys' don't come back to life," she reminded him.

"Okay, okay. I'm an _immortal_ guy. I can be hurt or killed—but I get better." No need to tell her anything she hadn't already witnessed, and especially not his weaknesses. If she believed he'd recover from anything, let her—as long as she didn't decide to test him.

"Immortal?" This from the slender redhead at the table. "Really?"

Rich glanced over at her, hearing the excitement in her voice. "Well, so far," he said.

"So how old are you?"

"Twenty-six." Her look of disappointment made Rich laugh.

"Twenty-six?" she asked plaintively.

"Sorry," Rich replied. "But even ancient immortals were young once."

The redhead looked suddenly acutely embarrassed.

The older man at her side looked up from his book for the first time. "Immortality—of a non-vampiric kind—isn't unheard of," he announced. He spoke with a British accent. "Buffy's description of the healing effect—the sparking in and around the wound—sounded familiar. This book describes just such an individual. Centuries old, unaging, able to recover from virtually any wound, engaged in some kind of contest with others of his kind—"

Rich listened with growing unease. The contents of that book sounded like a Watcher's chronicle. Sometimes he really hated the Watchers. Bad enough that they kept tabs on immortals—but they couldn't even hang onto their records reliably. It would be just his luck if this turned out to be a history of the Kurgan or St. Cloud or some other pyscho. A gory record of the kind of atrocities they'd committed would be more than enough to damn him.

Buffy spoke up, interrupting the lecture. "What's the Cliffs Notes version, Giles? Is he candidate for Mr. Pointy or not?"

The older man—Giles—frowned for a moment, not at Buffy but in thought. "I think not. Aside from the fact that staking him would be a temporary measure at best, Mr. Redstone has done nothing to warrant such a response. You did say he was fighting the vampires when you arrived. And there's nothing in this record to indicate that these immortals are any particular threat…save to one another."

Giles' words confirmed Rich's worst fears. That chronicle obviously described the results of beheadings. Giles hadn't spilled the beans yet, though. Rich decided that a distraction was called for.

"Buffy," Rich said, taking advantage of a pause as Giles looked down at the book again. "How is it that you're strong enough to duke it out with v-vampires?" Rich stumbled over the last word, still finding it hard to believe that they really existed.

"I told you—I'm the Slayer," the blonde told him.

"Of…vampires, demons and zombies," Rich repeated what she'd say earlier.

She nodded.

"Jesus," Rich muttered. He closed his eyes for a moment, wanting desperately to disbelieve. Dear God, make it not so. Let me wake up at home in Seacouver, with nothing more than headhunting immortals to worry about. When he opened his eyes again, Buffy— _the Slayer_ —was watching him sympathetically. She had lowered his sword.

"So I guess you're going along with Giles' advice?" Rich asked.

Buffy nodded. "Unless Xander wants to get all Perry Mason on you again." She looked over at the black-haired young man who was leaning against one wall now.

Xander uncrossed his arms to raise one hand. "Nah, I'm good."

"In that case," Rich said to Buffy, "how about untying me?"

"Sure." Buffy stood and knelt on the sofa at Rich's side to reach behind Rich's back. He felt a tug and heard a distinct pop. As the coils of rope around his wrists went slack, Buffy leaned over and did the same for his ankles. Rich watched in amazement as she snapped the rope effortlessly. "Anything else?"

Rich didn't even have to think about it. "Some food would be nice. I'm starving."

* * *

"Jesus," Richie said for the umpteenth time. "Vampires." He sat across Giles' dining room table from Buffy. Several empty pizza boxes and a forest of empty glasse covered the tabletop. Giles had long since retired. Willow and Xander were dozing on the sofa and in an overstuffed chair respectively.

Buffy snagged a breadstick from Richie's plate and scooped up some sauce. "You said that already. About a zillion times."

Rich gave her a sheepish grin. "It's just so…unnerving." The grin faded, though, as he looked past Buffy to the dark square of the window. "I'll never take the dark for granted again."

"That's a good thing, then," Buffy said.

"But how do you live with it? Knowing that all those…things are out there?"

"How do you live with the threat of some midieval psycho chopping your head off?" Buffy asked. In the course of their conversation, Rich had told Buffy about the Game. He hadn't intended to at first, but they had both shared secrets. Vampires were only the tip of the iceberg. Buffy lived in a world that Rich had only ever glimpsed in horror movies.

"That's different," Rich protested, though even as he spoke he knew better. He'd run into his share of monsters even before becoming immortal. Monsters didn't have to have fangs or drink blood to destroy lives.

"Is it? Why don't you just avoid the other immortals, then?"

"It doesn't work that way. Duncan tried that—"

"Duncan's immortal too?"

"Yeah. He's my teacher. He's tried to stay out of the Game, but it never works for long. Somehow you just always wind up getting pulled back into it. Destiny, you know?"

"Tell me about it," Buffy said. "I didn't choose to become the Slayer but I can't change it either, any more than you can."

"Would you? If you could?"

Buffy stared down at the table for a long while. "I don't know," she replied at last. "Once I would have said yes in a heartbeat. I didn't choose to be the Slayer and I resented having the obligation forced on me. "Now I'm not sure. I'm good at it, very good."

She lifted her head, looked into Rich's eyes. A hint of defiance crept into her voice. "There's more to it than I used to think there was. Maybe a lot more. And—I enjoy it now, you know?" 

Rich nodded. He remembered headhunting, losing his fears and confusion in the primal thrill of hunting another immortal. "I know."

"What about you?" Buffy asked.

"Would I give it all up? I'd be dead now, if I weren't immortal. So I suppose not. It would be nice not to have to fight all the time, but...." Rich hunted for words, then threw up his hands. "I dunno."

They sat quietly for a time. Rich felt no need to fill the silence with words. There were very few people he could really talk to about his life, and most them would be more interested in taking it than talking about it. Buffy understood it. And though he didn't expect ever to see her again after this night, that was comforting.

"It'll be dawn soon," Buffy announced.

"Yeah," Rich agreed, smiling with relief. "It'll be safe to roam the streets once more. No more vampires."

Buffy didn't smile. "Safer, maybe. But the vampires are always there."

Rich felt his smile fade. She was right. His life would never be the same again. Just as when he'd learned the truth about immortals, the lessons he'd learned tonight would be with him forever. He'd never take the darkness for granted again. Or anything else about his world. Twice now he'd had his understanding of the limits of reality pulled down around his ears.

Not again. He'd keep an open mind on the subject of what was possible and what wasn't from now on. And he'd keep his eyes and ears open. Especially at night.

The vampires would always be there.

**Author's Note:**

> This story takes place sometime early in Buffy's fourth season, after she's started college (but in a world where Dawn never existed), and also at some point several years after Richie became immortal (in a world where the whole Ahriman fiasco, including Richie's idiotic death, never happened). 
> 
> 1\. Mary Sue is, of course, the name given to the sort of wish-fulfilment characters beloved by everyone in the story. Who else would Richie pursue all the way from Seacouver to Sunnydale in hopes of bedding her again?
> 
> 2\. Plenty of fanfiction has commented on the similarity of the Watchers in both Buffy and Highlander. They're often taken to be different branches of the same organization. I prefer to think they're simply parallel organizations with same unimaginative name. Giles' possession of a lost Watcher journal is simply the result of his long-time interest in collecting esoterica of all sorts.


End file.
